Seventeen year old Ivan is cynical, closed off, and a bit of
an asshole. He has good reason to be; he’s spent his entire life in the Mazyr
Hospital for Gravely Ill Children. He’s a Chernobyl baby, born with no legs and
only a left arm, with a hand with two fingers and, thankfully, a thumb. He was
left at the hospital as a baby, a mysterious orphan. His facial muscles don’t
work right, and he finds speech difficult. His intellect is keen, though, and
he reads copiously. His days are all the same; he reads, pretends to be
comatose so he can eavesdrop, watches TV, and masturbates. A lot. The only ray
of light in his situation is Natalya, one of the nurses, the only one who
treats him like a human being. She brings him his beloved books.
Then one day a lovely teen girl, Polina, comes to the
hospital for treatment for leukemia. At first they studiously ignore each
other. Then they begin communicating by leaving notes around. Slowly they begin
to trust each other, and a relationship blooms as her disease gets worse. She
breaks through Ivan’s shell that he’s built up and makes him see that his life
actually does have possibilities.
It’s a heartbreaking story laced heavily with black humor. While
the reader knows part of what will happen, it does have surprises. I thought I
had figured out who Ivan’s mother was, but it turned out I was very wrong. Why
is he in a hospital for gravely ill children? He has birth defects, but is
perfectly healthy And the final ending was unexpected. Despite the grimness,
this was a book I couldn’t put down.
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I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program in return for an unbiased review.
Neither of these things influenced my review.
Ahhh. Sounds heartbreaking. You are a stronger woman than I am.
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